Islanders Finally End Slide

By ROBIN FINN, Special to the New York Times

Published: December 19, 1988

UNIONDALE, L.I., Dec. 18—
All season long, the once-feared Islanders have struggled to get their bearings on the ice. Like an awkward child trying to learn to ride a bicycle, they were at odds with their own coordination, and when they fell, they fell hard.

A team out of sync with itself and out of sympathy with the coach, Terry Simpson, the Islanders tumbled into a losing streak that cost Simpson his job, eventually stretched to 12 games and caused the general manager, Bill Torrey, to be perceived as ''a dunce.''

''When we were winning I was a genius,'' Torrey said last weekend, ''but now that we're in last place I'm a dunce.''

''Our players are very uptight, worried, scared, and confused, and everybody's beating on them,'' said Torrey, who five games ago brought back Al Arbour as coach. ''What they have in front of them is Mount Everest.''

After four games under Arbour, the Islanders had four more losses and an arena of hostile fans waiting for them on Saturday as they tackled the Devils.

''I didn't think the return of Al Arbour would be like waving a magic wand,'' Torrey said, ''but some people did.'' Islanders Avoid Setting Record

But on Saturday, the Islanders coasted through their game against the Devils like bicyclists who had climbed a mountain and earned a downhill spree. With a 5-2 victory, they avoided setting a franchise record for the longest losing streak. The victory was their first since Nov. 19.

At Nassau Coliseum, with five seconds left on the clock, the organist tossed away the dirges demanded by the recent past and swung into the ''Hallelujah Chorus'' from Handel's ''Messiah.'' The fans, who commenced their standing ovation after the Islanders left the second period with a 4-1 grip on the Devils, made a joyful noise.

''What more can you ask?'' Arbour said, beaming.

But in a quieter moment, Arbour and Torrey admitted there was plenty more to ask from their wayward squad. 'We Can't Get Carried Away'

''Winning that game meant everything at the stage we're at,'' Arbour said, ''but we can't get carried away by it. I hope I don't hear anyone say that everything is solved.''

The Islanders are still in last place in the league. In the Patrick Division, they are 13 points behind the fifth-place Devils and 18 points in back of the Rangers, the Capitals and the Flyers, who are tied for second place.

On Monday, the Islanders face the Penguins in Pittsburgh, the site of a 4-2 loss on Dec. 3. Last Thursday an 8-2 drubbing by the Penguins snuffed what had been a glimmer of improvement for the Islanders, four successive losses by one goal.

Logic had it, said the Penguins, that a club on an 11-game losing streak was ripe for exploitation, and Saturday's breakthrough is not enough to prove that brand of logic inappropriate. 'Our Team Is Like a Time Bomb'

The Islanders may be on the brink of more change.

''It causes me indigestion, diarrhea, loss of sleep and appetite, and any sort of normal existence,'' said Torrey, who thrives on stasis. ''For now, our team is like a time bomb ticking.''

''When you're at the bottom of a well looking up, you'll do anything to get there,'' he said of the prospect of more personnel changes. ''Don't rule out any deal, but I'm not about to let somebody pick my carcass.''

In the midst of the losing streak, there was a moment in which Torrey would have parted with most of his club without shedding a tear.

''My only alternative to dismissing Terry was to trade 22 or 23 players, but that's hard to do,'' Torrey said. ''So Terry went because the chemistry between him and this group was just not working.'' Reasons for Slide

The other reasons behind the slide of the Islanders are myriad.

Torrey expected the infusion of young players - at one juncture there were seven rookies on the ice -to cost the club some poise and cause some mistakes. ''But a good number of them were removed by injuries or whatnot,'' he said, ''and then we still kept losing because other players, players we counted on, just weren't performing. It looks like I made a miscalculation when I put this team together.''

Six Islander regulars, just one of whom is a rookie, are hobbled by injuries. Until Patrick Flatley, Alan Kerr, Gerald Diduck, Brad Lauer, Derek King, and Dean Chynoweth work their way back into the lineup, Torrey said, ''I won't be able to say how good or bad this team is because I don't know what this team is.''

''I haven't seen the team I planned on since training camp,'' he said. Production Deficiencies

Arbour has declined to comment on the prowess of the players he inherited. Instead of Mike Bossy and Denis Potvin, he is directing Mick Vukota and Mike Walsh and Marc Bergevin. Players who were supposed to blossom this season have not. Brent Sutter, Bryan Trottier, and Pat LaFontaine have been reliable but unable to make up for production deficiencies that swept through the club.

Torrey put the game plan even more bluntly: ''Just like thinking about all those Stanley Cups we've won isn't going to do us any good, so does thinking about those last 12 games we lost in a row, and the rest before them. We've got to forget about them while there's still time. Have I given up? An unequivocal no.''